


Outfoxed

by Yen



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blow Jobs, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, Forced Crossdressing, Kitsune, M/M, Magic, Predator/Prey, Ravishment, Seduction, Sharing a Bed, Size Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:08:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21529567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yen/pseuds/Yen
Summary: When taking a treacherous shortcut through the mountains, T'Challa runs into a kitsune - a handsome, dangerous fox spirit.
Relationships: Erik Killmonger/T'Challa
Comments: 50
Kudos: 252





	1. Chapter 1

The rain poured down in torrents from the overcast sky, icy cold and freezing on T’Challa’s skin. T’Challa couldn’t suppress a full-body shiver as he hurried on through the downpour. The strong gusts of wind had blown his umbrella inside out, and now he had nothing to shelter from the rain.

T'Challa's heart sank as he looked up at the sky. Rivulets of icy cold rain dripped down his cheeks towards his neck, drenching his collar and soaking him to the bone. Lightning flashed across the grey skies, followed almost immediately by the deafening sound of a thunderclap, so loud that it made T'Challa jump. 

In a storm like this, there was absolutely no way that he could make his way back to his hometown of Wakanda in time to join his family for the Lunar New Year festivities. T'Challa didn't know for certain what time it was right now, but he had a hunch that it was already close to evening. He ought to have reached the town of Birnin Zanna by now, but he wasn't even halfway there yet. The dirt road stretched out seemingly endlessly in front of him, winding through the darkening forest. 

T'Challa winced. Mother and Shuri were going to be so upset if he missed their traditional reunion dinner. This would have been the family's first New Year together without his father, who had passed on a scant few months ago. The thought of Mother and Shuri spending the festivities alone with just each other for company made his heart wrench. But at the rate he was travelling, there was no way that he could make it back home in time. 

Unless - 

He  _ could  _ take the shortcut through the mountains. 

T’Challa swallowed. A cold chill swept over him, a chill which had nothing to do with the howling gale and pouring rain.

The mountain pass would cut short his travelling time by a full two days. But it would be very, very dangerous. 

Even on a good day, the path through the mountains was rocky and treacherous. In a storm like this, the mountain pass might become blocked by mudslides and rockfalls. Worse, bandits lurked on the mountain. Bandits and beasts - tigers, wolves and bears that would view a lone traveller as easy prey. And even  _ worse  _ than those beasts were the spirits and demons of the wilderness. 

Some of these spirits were largely benign, and wouldn’t harm him if he didn’t offend them. But then there were the other spirits who dwelled in the mountains - spirits such as snake demons, kitsune and wraiths who who would leap at the chance to devour a juicy little human if he wandered onto the wrong path. 

The thought of being robbed by bandits, mauled by beasts or having his soul devoured by an evil demon sent a cold chill down T’Challa’s spine.

But if he didn’t take the shortcut through the mountains, there was no way that he could make it back home for the New Year. 

T’Challa gritted his teeth and turned left before he lost his nerve, leaving the safety of the main road for the treacherous mountain pass.

* * *

T'Challa was so cold that he could feel his teeth chattering in his skull as he stumbled along the mountain pass. His fingers were freezing, and his feet ached. His cloth shoes, soaked through by the rain, offered barely any protection from the sharp stones on the ground beneath his feet. 

He had spent what seemed like hours struggling through the darkness and the pouring rain. The paved path, lit only by the weak, flickering glow from his lantern, became narrower and less well-maintained the further along he went. Eventually, it petered out to a trail of dirt, pebbles and bumpy rocks that were almost covered with overgrown grass. 

The hem of T'Challa's robes were caked with mud which had splashed up from the uneven trail, and twice he had almost tripped and fallen flat on his face when his clothes caught and ripped on sharp branches. With dismay, T'Challa realised that he would have to throw his robes after this. They were practically rags now.

T’Challa raised his lantern higher and tried to keep a close eye on the ground as he made his way through the dense trees and brambles, taking care to avoid slipping on the wet jagged rocks. The worst of the storm was now over, but the rain continued to beat down on him in an unrelenting drizzle. He was wet and hungry and miserable. 

T'Challa heaved a sigh of bone-deep weariness and raised his lantern skywards, trying to see if the cloudy skies showed any signs of clearing up soon. 

_ Wait.  _

The weak glow from his lantern illuminated a particular crooked tree which looked  _ very  _ familiar. 

Had he passed by this way before? 

Alarmed, T'Challa looked about wildly at his surroundings. Yes, he had definitely been down this road before. But how could that be? He had been following the mountain pass all along! 

T'Challa's heart began to pound fast in his panic. Somehow, he must have strayed off the path unknowingly while walking in the dark. He had been wandering around in circles for Bast knew how long. 

T’Challa gulped. Suddenly he felt very, very lost and alone. The cold oppressive darkness seemed to press down heavily against his skin. He was acutely aware of just how far away he was from civilization right now. If he didn't manage to find the main path leading out of the mountains - 

He might  _ die. _

T'Challa took a couple of deep breaths and tried to steady his trembling hands. He drew his cloak more tightly around his shoulders before turning around to face the direction he had come from. 

_ It would be fine, _ T'Challa told himself. He just needed to retrace his steps until he got back onto the main path again. Everything would be all right. 

* * *

T'Challa's breath came out in harsh pants. His chest felt tight and painful, and tears burned in his eyes. The rain had finally stopped a few minutes ago, but his robes were soaked through. In this chilly mountain air, he was shivering so hard that his lantern almost slipped out of his shaking fingers. 

He had been walking and walking for what seemed like hours. He had to admit that he was completely, hopelessly lost. 

Worse still, the oil in his lantern was starting to burn low. T'Challa estimated that he had less than two hours before the weak flame snuffed itself out and he was left in complete darkness. 

A sudden wave of crushing, primal fear swept over T'Challa, so overwhelming that it almost made his knees buckle. He broke out into a mindless panicked run, stumbling across the rocky ground even though he had no idea where he was going. All he knew was that he couldn’t spend another minute in these blasted mountains. 

The rocks and the trees seemed to be closing in on him, hemming him in, letting him know in some twisted way that he would be trapped here forever. Clawed, twisted branches seemed to reach out for him, intent on catching him in their grasp. They would trap him here in the mountains, all alone in the dark and the cold. 

T'Challa's breath caught in a sob. He was going to  _ die  _ here, and Mother and Shuri would never even find his bones -

T'Challa's foot slipped on one of the jagged rocks still damp and slippery from the storm. A sharp stab of pain shot up his ankle as it twisted beneath him. 

"Ah!"

T'Challa fell heavily onto his side, his body skidding across the wet ground. He let out a sharp, pained gasp as the breath was knocked out of his lungs. The lantern slipped out of his fingers, crashing down onto the ground. The sound of glass shattering rang out through the night.

The weak, dying flame in the lantern fizzled out, casting T’Challa into pitch blackness.

T'Challa's throat seized up in terror. Blindly, he groped along the ground, trying to find where his lantern had landed. He had - he had to relight it, there might still be some oil left in his suitcase which he could use to keep it alight -

“Ow!”

A shock of pain jolted up T’Challa’s palm. Somehow, he’d managed to cut himself on one of the shards of glass from the broken lantern. Warm wetness began to ooze out from the stinging wound. The glass shard had cut  _ deep.  _

T'Challa forced down a sob, even as his eyes began to burn with renewed tears of pain and fear. The lantern had to be close by. He began to grope about blindly at the ground again, fumbling about to locate it. 

A warm hand closed tightly around his wrist. 

“Don't do that," a silky voice purred, almost directly into his ear. 

T'Challa's head jerked up in shock. 

He hadn't even  _ noticed  _ the stranger approaching him. It was as if the man before him had suddenly appeared out of thin air. 

A breathtakingly handsome man, the most handsome man that T'Challa had ever seen before in his life, was now crouching down beside him. In one hand, he held aloft a lit lantern, casting a soft, warm flickering glow which illuminated their surroundings, while his other hand encircled T’Challa’s wrist, stopping it above the ground just inches away from the shards of glass. 

T'Challa stared up at the stranger, speechless, his heart beating fast. 

_ Not human.  _

No human could have appeared next to him so swiftly and silently, without T’Challa even being aware of his approach. And no human could possibly look as handsome as this vision of perfection before him. The man’s chiselled features were arranged into a faux-kindly smile, but there was a devilish glint in his eyes that sent a jolt of pure adrenaline across T’Challa’s nerves. In the firelight, the man’s dark eyes flashed solid gold for an instant, then disappeared so fast that T’Challa could almost have believed that he might have imagined it.

Even as T’Challa’s heart rate spiked, the man's hand shifted up from T’Challa’s wrist, stroking up T'Challa's forearm before he gripped T’Challa by the upper arm. T’Challa hardly dared to breathe. But all the man did was help T'Challa to his feet in one swift motion, quick as a fox, tugging T’Challa in closer towards his own body.

He was so  _ warm. _ His body was like a blazing fire against T’Challa’s storm-chilled skin. Instinctively, T’Challa leaned in closer, seeking out the man's warmth. 

_ Not a man,  _ T'Challa reminded himself with a jolt.  _ Not a man. He's not human. He’s some sort of spirit. Maybe even a  _ _ demon _ _ - _

Still, for some reason, T'Challa found that he couldn't pull away. He stood transfixed, frozen in place even as the stranger’s hand circled his wrist again. With a sudden motion, he lifted T'Challa's wounded hand, palm facing up, towards his lips. 

A warm, wet tongue darted out of the man's mouth, licking at the deep cut on T’Challa’s palm. 

T’Challa inhaled sharply. A thrill of electricity jolted up his spine. 

The wound stung, but in a good kind of way, and the man’s rough tongue soothed away the worst of the pain. Distantly, he noted that the man’s tongue was so  _ rough. _ Like a cat’s. 

“Mmmm.” The stranger let out a low, husky purr as he continued lapping at the dark red droplets of blood oozing up from the cut on T'Challa's palm.

A breathless gasp escaped T'Challa's lips. 

_ He's going to EAT me.  _

The realization crashed through his mind, a bright, loud flare of alarm.  _ Danger,  _ screamed some sort of prey instinct buried deep within the most primal part of him. He knew without a doubt that this man - this  _ spirit -  _ was mortally dangerous. T’Challa’s very soul was in peril. 

But the man must have bewitched him somehow. T’Challa knew that he ought to run screaming in the other direction, but his legs had gone weak. They could barely even hold him upright. All he could do was stare at the man, unable to tear his eyes away from his handsome features, his strong jaw, his beautiful dark eyes fixed on T’Challa’s own.

A friendly, amused,  _ knowing _ smile spread across the other man’s face. His lips curled up into a smirk, revealing a flash of too-sharp canines, teeth which stood out stark-white in the dark night.

“Why don't you come home with me,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “My house isn’t far away from here. You look so cold and tired. You can spend the night there, and I'll take you down the mountain in the morning.” The man’s voice was dark and alluring.

“N-no," T'Challa said, barely above a whisper. Even to his own ears, he sounded shaky and terrified. "No, I, I think I'll just be on my way." 

"Don't be foolish,” the man said. He hadn’t let go of T’Challa’s wrist. “Do you even know where you are? You’ll freeze to death out here. It gets very cold so high up in the mountains at night. Cold - and  _ dangerous.” _

T‘Challa’s shiver just served to amuse the man further. His smile widened, and his gaze was now outright predatory. 

T'Challa made a last, half-hearted effort to squirm free. "Really, it's fine. I don't want to trouble you."

"Oh, it would be no trouble at all," the man purred. "In fact, it would be my  _ pleasure _ to host you." 

T'Challa swallowed. He wasn't a fool. The man himself was clearly dangerous, a supernatural being with unknown motives - but on the other hand, he  _ was _ right. He would be in extreme danger out here on his own.

At that moment, the sound of howling broke through the still night. Just one wolf howl at first, then another and another, long mournful howls rising and falling in unison. 

_ Bast.  _

Those howls sounded as if they were coming from somewhere  _ quite _ close by. 

T'Challa dithered, unable to make up his mind. 

Then the stranger let go of T'Challa wrist, folded his hands into the long sleeves of his flowing white robe, and began walking off into the forest. 

He didn't look back. 

As T'Challa watched him depart, he suddenly discovered that his fear of the stranger was rather less intense than his fear of being left alone in the dark with hungry wolves. 

"I - wait for me!" T'Challa exclaimed. 

He pulled his tattered cloak around his shoulders, picked up his travelling case and then hurried to catch up. 


	2. Chapter 2

T'Challa's heart was pounding hard with nerves as they approached the man's house. The handsome stranger hadn’t actually  _ done  _ anything threatening towards him so far, but T’Challa still couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was very, very dangerous. Some deep instinct warned him that he was in the presence of a predator that was just toying with its prey. 

_ Playing with its food. _

T’Challa swallowed hard and told himself that he was just being paranoid. If the stranger really was an evil spirit, he could have just eaten T’Challa on the spot. Why go to all the trouble of luring T'Challa back to his house?

They had reached the man’s house now. It was situated almost at the very edge of the mountain, overlooking a steep cliff. The house – a  _ mansion, _ really – was so large and luxurious that it took T'Challa breath away. This was clearly a wealthy man's residence. Marbled walls, intricately carved pillars and enormous statues of foxes with studded gems for eyes lining both sides of the long paved path winding through the courtyard, leading up to the front door. 

T'Challa had the strangest feeling that the statues' gemstone eyes were  _ watching _ him. The eyes of the stone foxes glinted under the moonlight, cold and crystalline, sparkling with a cold brilliant fire that sent a shiver down T’Challa’s spine.

Biting his lip, T'Challa hurried past them as fast as he could, his gaze averted from the strangely lifelike statues as he tried to catch up with the stranger. 

The path wound past a large Zen rock garden in the courtyard itself. White pebbles and large granite boulders gleamed under the silvery light of the moon. Ringing the outer edges of the courtyard, bent, twisting pine trees grew out of the stony ground, their twisting, eerie dark forms rising out of the mist. 

The stranger's house was undeniably beautiful and luxurious. But why would a rich man be living all alone in such a deserted place? 

"Sir," T'Challa began.

The man turned to him. For a moment, T'Challa thought he saw the stranger's eyes flash with the same cold, brilliant fire as the gemstone eyes of the fox statues. 

"No need to be so formal," he said to T’Challa with a charming grin. "You can call me Erik."

“Oh – I’m T’Challa,” T’Challa said, suddenly flustered. Erik’s dazzling smile made all his misgivings wash in an instant. Under the full focus of Erik’s attention, T’Challa suddenly couldn’t recall why exactly he had been so afraid at the beginning. All he wanted to do was to make Erik smile at him like that again.

He could feel himself becoming breathless, his knees going weak as Erik’s smile widened into a smirk. “Yes?” Erik asked. 

“Do you really live here all by yourself?” T’Challa gestured vaguely towards the garden and the house. Surely it was too big for a man to live in all alone. 

"Yes," Erik said, continuing to smile at him. His voice was smooth and silky, and for some unknown reason, it stirred a funny feeling – a fluttering, almost – in the pit of T'Challa's stomach. 

Nervousness? Or desire? 

T'Challa felt a flush rising to his cheeks. With difficulty, he quickly forced his train of thought back on track. "Don't you have servants or family living here with you? 

"What a strange question." Erik laughed. "No, it’s just me. What, are you afraid I'll be lonely here all by myself? I could always use some company.” Erik's eyes sparkled. 

Even T’Challa, oblivious as he usually was to such matters, could tell that Erik was now flirting with him. Flustered, he immediately began to protest. “No, I – I really need to get home. My family is waiting for me.”

But his feeble protests died down as Erik placed a hand on the small of his back. Warmth seemed to radiate throughout his body out from the point of contact, driving away the chill from his soaked robes. A thrill of delight ran up T’Challa’s spine, and he couldn't help the small, pleased sigh which escaped his lips. 

Erik grinned. He steered T'Challa up the path towards his home, and T'Challa allowed himself to be led without protest. 

* * *

Warm bright light illuminated the entrance to the house, radiating out from a large lantern hanging near the door. 

T'Challa stepped out of his soaked shoes at the raised doorstep, wincing at the chill as his wet socks were exposed to the cold night air. He was suddenly extremely conscious of just how wet his clothes were, after he'd been soaked to the bone during the downpour earlier. Rainwater was trickling down to the floor in drips and drops from the hem and the long sleeves of his robes. 

As T'Challa ran a hand through his wet curls, he noted with dismay that he was dripping all over the marbled floor, making an absolute mess. His robes were ruined and his clothes were stained with dirt from his mad dash through the mountains earlier, and the soles of his feet left muddy prints on the pristine, gleaming floor. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry about the mess," T'Challa apologised. Quickly, he began to shrug off his travelling cloak and his robe, until he was clad in nothing more than his thin, white inner robes.

Erik's gaze sharpened. His hungry eyes drank in every inch of T'Challa's exposed skin, from his collarbones to the bit of bare torso peeking out from the gap in his robe fastenings, all the way down to T'Challa's calves and bare feet. 

T'Challa shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and smoothed his hand over the front of his robes, suddenly realizing just how little it covered and how much the thin, wet fabric clung to his body. His cheeks grew warm with embarrassment. Normally he wouldn't have batted an eyelid at undressing in front of another man, but with the way Erik was looking at him, he felt very much like a particularly juicy cut of meat being assessed by a ravenous diner. He desperately wanted to change into something less revealing, but his suitcase was soaked from the rain, and all his other clothes in it would be equally wet. 

As if reading T'Challa's mind, Erik offered, "Want me to get some clothes for you? You must be freezing in these wet robes." 

"Oh, yes. Thank you," T'Challa said gratefully. 

He bundled his dirty clothes under his arm and followed behind Erik as Erik led him down the hallway. 

For such a large, luxurious house, the walls were surprisingly bare and unadorned. In fact, the whole place barely looked lived in at all. There were no paintings or personal effects that T'Challa could see, and despite the luxurious furnishings and ornate decor, the entire house had a coldly impersonal feel to it. It was a strangely unsettling realization, one that sent a frisson of alarm through T'Challa again. He had known that Erik was dangerous – dangerous, and possibly not even fully human – but for some reason, it was very hard to keep that thought in his mind. His brain kept trying to come up with excuses for the unusual things he'd noticed about Erik so far. 

Was he being bewitched? 

All of T'Challa's misgivings were swept clean out of his mind again when Erik placed a warm hand on his shoulder. Erik gently steered him in the direction of a door that didn't seem to have been there a moment ago. 

The door opened into a large dressing room, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors on all walls and an enormous rosewood wardrobe taking up most of the space in the room. Erik opened the wardrobe, which was stacked almost of neatly folded robes, towels and bundles of cloth. 

Erik rummaged in the wardrobe for several seconds. 

"Here's a towel and a clean inner robe," he said, piling the said items atop T’Challa’s outstretched arms. ‘Just pick whatever else you’d like to wear from here. I'll leave you to get dressed. When you’re done, you can join me in the dining room - it’s just down the hall. I’ll go make us something to eat first.”

So T’Challa  _ really  _ wasn’t on the menu after all. For a brief moment, he couldn’t decide whether he was relieved or disappointed.

“Thank you so much,” T’Challa said. 

Erik gave him another brief, dazzling smile before he was out the door. 

Without Erik around, T’Challa got the distinct impression that the room seemed to have  _ dulled.  _ Even the colours of the clothes in the wardrobe suddenly seemed more muted, less bright.

T’Challa blinked, then decided that his eyes must have been playing tricks on him.

He quickly stripped out of his wet inner robe, towelled himself dry with the large, fluffy white towel, then turned his attention back to the robes in the wardrobe.

The first few robes that he unfolded were so sheer that T’Challa couldn’t believe that the gauzy fabric could actually hold itself together. T’Challa boggled, trying not to imagine how ridiculous he would look wearing those, then quickly refolded them and set them aside with a hot flush on his cheeks.

The next few robes that T’Challa pulled out of the wardrobe were equally revealing. One of them was sleeveless. The next one that he unfolded didn't even cover up his chest. And the following one that he pulled out of the wardrobe was so short that its hem ended at the middle of his thighs. 

With dismay, T'Challa realized that  _ all _ of Erik's clothes were extremely, well… s _ lutty. _ They were all either too sheer, too short or too figure-hugging - nothing like the modest, flowing robes that T’Challa was accustomed to wearing. Even looking at some of the clothes that he had unfolded made T’Challa flush. Did Erik seriously expect him to put  _ that  _ on? It wasn’t as if T'Challa was ungrateful for Erik's hospitality, but he'd rather die than wear something so immodest in front of the handsome stranger. 

Dismayed, T'Challa turned back into the wardrobe and began pulling robes out of it frantically, trying to find something,  _ anything, _ that wasn’t too outrageous. His panic rose as more and more robes were unfolded, judged unsuitable and then tossed aside. 

He had almost gone through the entire pile of garments in the wardrobe, right down to the bottom of the pile at the very back of the wardrobe, when his searching fingers brushed against a small knob at the back of the wardrobe just so.

There was a small  _ snick, _ then the sensation of a compartment - some sort of drawer? - opening. 

Surprised, T’Challa pulled his hand back, but not before something soft and incredibly silky brushed against his fingers. 

T'Challa sucked in a sharp breath. 

He’d never felt anything so exquisitely  _ fluffy  _ in his entire life. 

That certainly hadn’t felt like any sort of robe.

T’Challa knew that he really shouldn't be prying and poking about in Erik's belongings. Clearly he had accidentally stumbled upon some sort of hidden compartment, a compartment which concealed something that Erik had gone to great lengths to keep secret. He was being  _ nosy. _ If Erik found out, he would be rightfully furious. 

But despite all this, T’Challa’s curiosity was getting the better of him. Surely it couldn't hurt just to take one peek. What  _ had  _ he felt earlier in the secret compartment? The fabric, cloth or fur had felt so heavenly soft against his fingers. Was it a robe? A cloak? He was dying to see it in its full glory. 

He'd just take a quick look, T'Challa told himself. Just a quick look, and then he'd put it back right where he had taken in from and go out to rejoin Erik. 

T'Challa took a quick, furtive glance behind him to make sure the door was closed. Then, in a swift motion, he gripped a corner of the silky soft  _ thing  _ between his fingers and, holding his breath, he yanked it out of the secret compartment with a sharp tug. 

"Oh," T'Challa said in a small, stunned voice. 

It was a fox tail. 

Three fox tails, to be precise, wound together in a bundle. They were so furry and so incredibly soft, so soft that T'Challa's fingers sank right into the fur as if it were butter. The fox furs gleamed with a brilliant, dazzling sheen under the soft candlelight. Deep hues of golden orange, snowy white and a rich, midnight black, all of which gleamed with a brilliant, iridescent sheen when held at the right angle under the firelight. T'Challa had never seen anything so exquisitely gorgeous in his life. 

_ "Oh," _ T'Challa whispered again, in a hushed reverent exhale of breath. 

The pieces all slotted together in T'Challa's mind in a flash. Momentarily stunned, he lost his grip on the fox tails, and they slid out of his hands, falling into a heap at the ground before his feet. 

Erik was a fox spirit. A kitsune. 

Not a demon, thank Bast, but nevertheless, kitsune could nevertheless be quite dangerous to humans. They were powerfully magical, long-lived fox spirits who delighted in playing tricks on people. It was said that kitsune could live for centuries, and for every century of meditation and magical cultivation, the kitsune would be able to grow a new tail. The oldest and most magical kitsune had up to nine tails, and were rumoured to be powerful enough to drain seas and level mountains. 

With three tails, Erik had to be at least three hundred years old. Young, for a kitsune, but still, undoubtedly powerful enough to do things that T'Challa could only dream of. 

T'Challa hastily bent down to retrieve the fox tails from the ground, hoping with all his heart that Erik hadn't sensed anything amiss. He turned the fox tails over and over in his hands, marvelling at the beautiful sheen of the enchanted furs under the firelight as his mind whirred.

T'Challa knew that a kitsune could shed its tails for a short period to transform temporarily into a human. In its human form, a kitsune wouldn’t be able to do magic, but being able to pass as human could be useful under the right circumstances - for instance, when luring an unwary traveller into its lair.

T’Challa swallowed hard.

He had also heard that kitsune were able to seduce and drain humans of their vitality by having sex with them, like some sort of sex vampire. Draining a human this way would increase the kitsune’s vitality at the expense of the human’s, and would shorten the time needed for the kitsune to cultivate its newest tail. The human would usually be left alone after the kitsune had lost interest in them, having suffered nothing more serious than physical exhaustion, sleep deprivation or, at worse, a broken heart. 

Those were the lucky ones.

The  _ unlucky _ ones, the rare few hapless victims which the kitsune never lost interest in, would be pampered and cherished and fucked until they were drained to their death. 

That was why kitsune were considered to be so dangerous. On the rare occasion that a kitsune fixated upon a human, the bewitched victim, dazzled by the kitsune's charms, would fall so deeply in love with the trickster fox that they would willingly let the kitsune drain their life force until they were all used up. 

T'Challa felt his face grow warm with embarrassment, knowing just what sort of plans Erik had in store for him. 

What was he going to do now?

He had already spent an inordinately long time in this room "getting changed". Any minute now, Erik would be knocking on the door and asking T'Challa what was taking him so long. He needed to come up with a plan, fast. 

T'Challa looked desperately around the room. His gaze fell on his travelling case, which he had hastily set down in a corner of the room to dry earlier. 

The latches on the small suitcase were made with solid iron, and its hinges were made of metal as well. Probably iron. The exterior of the case was wrapped with leather hide, but did it have an iron backing beneath all that leather? T'Challa couldn't remember. It certainly felt solid enough. Spirits were supposed to be vulnerable to cold iron, which was said to be capable of dampening or even nullifying magical powers. 

Praying that the minimal amount of iron in his suitcase would be sufficient, T'Challa hastily wrapped the fox tails in a robe that he pulled out of the wardrobe, then stuffed the entire bundle into the very bottom of his suitcase before piling some of his wet clothes on top of it. This was a terrible hiding spot, but it was the best he could come up with at the moment. Then he placed the suitcase back down in the corner. 

There wasn't much time left. T'Challa grabbed the closest robe from the top of the pile – one of the sheer, gauzy ones, pale purple and so short that it stopped at his  _ thighs  _ – and quickly put it on before turning to the mirror.

T’Challa’s reflection stared back at him, a look of complete mortification and stark terror on his face. The robe (which was more of a  _ dress, _ really) looked ridiculously short on him. The pale purple fabric stood out visibly against his dark skin, and when it caught the light, it almost  _ sparkled. _ He felt horribly exposed and vulnerable. 

T’Challa’s eyes flickered guiltily to his suitcase sitting innocuously in the corner of the room. 

With a Herculean effort, T’Challa straightened out his expression as best as he could, trying not to look too obviously guilty. Then he gathered up his courage and stepped out to face Erik, with the dreadful, sinking feeling that he was stepping into the fox's den. 


	3. Chapter 3

T'Challa could smell the delicious aroma of cooking food filling the house before he had even stepped foot into the dining hall. His mouth immediately started watering and his footsteps sped up. 

When he entered the dining room, he was greeted with the sight of a veritable feast laid out on the long rosewood table. Roasted meats, freshly-sliced cuts of sashimi, steamed vegetables, fried tempura, dainty candies, desserts and juicy fruits were heaped onto overflowing plates. At the centre of the table was a large steamboat. Pieces of seafood were floating in the bubbling broth - crab legs, lobsters, prawns and various shellfish. 

T'Challa stood stunned in the doorway for a moment, his mouth hanging open. This was way too much for two people to finish. And Erik had somehow put this feast together in the short time that it had taken T'Challa to get dressed? If T'Challa hadn't already known that Erik was a kitsune, he would definitely have suspected some sort of sorcery. Erik really wasn't hiding his powers very well. 

Erik grinned up at T'Challa as he entered. Even knowing exactly what he was, T'Challa's heart still skipped a beat at the sight of the handsome man's artfully guileless smile. 

"That took a while. Couldn't decide on what to wear?" Erik teased. His dark gaze trailed over T'Challa's figure-hugging, lingering appreciatively on the bare, exposed inches of thigh peeking out from under the hem of the robe. 

T'Challa felt his cheeks grow hot, feeling horribly exposed under Erik's scrutiny. Hastily, he pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. The short robe - more of a  _ dress, _ really - hiked up his thighs as he did so. Embarrassed, T’Challa quickly put his hands on his lap. The sight of T’Challa all flustered just made Erik laugh at him outright.

"Your clothes aren't really my style," T'Challa complained. Under other circumstances, he would have just bitten his tongue instead of bringing up anything negative to his host - that would have been  _ rude.  _ But he knew full well that Erik had ulterior motives and wasn't just trying to be hospitable, and for some reason that loosened his tongue.

Erik smirked. "Aw, don’t be shy. You look gorgeous." 

He gave T’Challa another appreciative once-over, his gaze so dark and fiery that T’Challa, embarrassed, shifted in his seat, then crossed his legs under the table. Erik's look made him feel like one of the morsels on the dining table, just another part of the feast.

Erik began to pile food onto T'Challa's empty plate and bowl. He ladled out a large slice of pure white fish meat, dripping with broth, into T'Challa's bowl, and T’Challa automatically lifted the succulent piece of fish to his lips and bit down. The meat had a delightfully sweet, pure taste that contrasted beautifully with the umami flavour of the broth, and T'Challa almost sighed with bliss at the explosion of flavours in his mouth. 

Then he froze. 

Maybe he shouldn't have eaten that. Weren't there tales warning against accepting food from spirits? 

T'Challa bit his lip. He really should have known better, but… the fish  _ was _ incredibly tasty. He had never eaten such fresh fish before in his life. Now that he had taken a bite, Erik's suspicions would be roused if T’Challa suddenly refused to eat any of the food.

Well, it was too late to stop now. T’Challa comforted himself with the thought that he didn't  _ feel _ any different. At least on the surface, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the food Erik had prepared.

Some small part of T’Challa was extremely aware that all of these thoughts were just rationalizations. That after wandering about lost in the mountains for so many hours, he was simply too hungry to resist the temptations of the feast laid out before him. That rational side was drowned out in seconds by his overwhelming hunger. He continued to dig voraciously into the food, putting spoonful after spoonful of it into his mouth. 

Erik kept up a steady stream of pleasant chatter all the while, making jokes and listening attentively to T'Challa's own tales as he piled more food on T'Challa's plate. T'Challa had to admit to himself that if Erik had been anything else other than a kitsune, he'd already have charmed the pants off T'Challa. Time seemed to fly by, and T'Challa had almost forgotten that he was supposed to keep his guard up. 

Then Erik poured him a generous serving of wine.

“Oh - I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t drink,” T’Challa said politely, pushing the wine glass away. Eating Erik's food was one thing, but he wasn’t foolish enough to drink any spirits offered to him by a kitsune.

Erik was undeterred. “Just try a bit of this,” he coaxed. "It's red rice wine, made with an old family recipe and aged for ten years. Made from fermented red rice, glutinous rice and a  _ very _ special ingredient that shall remain a secret.” He gave T’Challa a conspiratorial wink. “I don’t get visitors up here very often, so I thought I’d bring this out tonight just for this occasion. Go on, just try a sip. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

Even from a distance, T’Challa could smell the aroma of the red rice wine wafting towards his nose, sweet and heady, with spicy-sweet alcoholic notes. His resolve wavered, but all his instincts were screaming at him  _ not  _ to drink the wine. The way Erik’s dark eyes were suddenly glittering was extremely suspicious.

“No, thank you. Really, I’m sorry, but it’s fine,” T'Challa demurred again. He was beginning to get nervous. Erik hadn't been so pushy up until this moment. 

As unobtrusively as possible, T’Challa closed the fingers of his left hand around the handle of his dinner knife. The feeling of the cold hard metal in his hand was only slightly comforting. There was no way that this small dinner knife, which wasn’t even very sharp, would be much defense against three-hundred-year-old fox spirit. But it was the closest thing that he had on hand as a weapon in a pinch. 

“I don’t react well to alcohol,” T’Challa invented, in a last-ditch effort at a protest. His heart was thudding fast in his chest. Was Erik really going to force the issue? He controlled his breathing, even though he was internally going to pieces. Already it took all of T’Challa’s effort not to flee screaming from the table, thereby revealing to Erik that he had seen through Erik’s deception.

But all Erik did was continue to smile at T’Challa, his hand on the other side of the wine glass, preventing T’Challa from pushing the glass any further away. 

They were at a stalemate, until - 

_ ‘T’Challa,”  _ Erik said. His voice was a soft purr, low and persuasive, and his eyes never left T’Challa’s as he pushed the wine glass forward again, just an inch this time.

As if mesmerized, T’Challa reached out and took hold of the stem of the wine glass. His mind was a blank as he raised it slowly to his lips. At that moment, there was no other thought in his mind but the desire to please Erik.

As T’Challa parted his lips, Erik’s smile widened. Wide enough that T’Challa caught sight of a flash of sharp golden canines peeking out from the corners of his lips.

The sight of those sharp fangs - those sharp, shiny  _ golden  _ fangs, fangs which no human could possibly have, was like a bucket of ice-cold water being dumped on its head. It pierced through the inexplicable fog that had settled over his mind, jolting T’Challa back to reason. 

He was being  _ enchanted. _

T’Challa inhaled sharply. But Erik was still watching him closely, like a predator on the verge of pouncing on its prey. T’Challa had never felt such a keen sense of mortal danger before in his life.

T'Challa gulped. Then, before he could lose his nerve, he held his breath and pretended to take a sip of the wine, discreetly making sure that he was holding the glass in such a way that the back of his hand was blocking his mouth from Erik's line of sight. 

There was a light, tingling sensation as the aromatic wine touched his lips, but otherwise T'Challa didn't sense any difference. He quickly pretended to take a few more swallows, then set the glass back down on the table. 

"Mmm, it really is very good wine," T'Challa lied, looking Erik directly in the eyes. "I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite so good before. Do you know, I think you

As T'Challa continued on, Erik leaned back in his seat, the coiled tension seeming to drain out of his body in an instant. His expression changed from predatory to a smugly self-satisfied smirk. 

So it  _ had _ been the wine that Erik had tampered with, not the food. That was a huge relief. But how much time did T'Challa have before Erik expected the wine to take effect? More importantly, what effect was the wine supposed to have on him? T'Challa needed to know how he should act. Should be pretend to be drunk? Drowsy? Or… horny? 

Erik cleared that up for T'Challa the next moment by saying in a light, casual tone, "I suppose you must be feeling tired now. You've had a long day."

"Oh, yes…" T'Challa allowed his voice to trail off and his eyelids to flutter shut for a brief moment, before pretending to jerk away again. He said, "I don't know, I just feel so sleepy all of a sudden. Maybe I've had too much to eat?"

Erik didn’t respond to that, and just smiled at T’Challa enigmatically. T'Challa let his head droop and relaxed the muscles in his body, slumping down a little in his seat. He continued to keep a close watch on Erik through his half-shut eyelids.

“T’Challa?” Erik said carefully.

T’Challa didn’t respond. He let his breathing become deep, even and slow as he let his head fall forward.

Erik grinned, then stood up suddenly, pushing his seat back. T’Challa tightened his grip on the small dinner knife as Erik approached him, moving his fingers just slowly enough that Erik wouldn’t be able to notice it. He tensed imperceptibly as he watched Erik’s approaching form through his eyelashes.

Erik placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “T’Challa?” he said again. 

When T’Challa still didn’t stir, Erik slung an arm around his shoulder. Then the room spun around T’Challa as T’Challa found himself scooped out of his chair, swept up into the kitsune’s arms. Erik was cradling him with one hand supporting his shoulders, and one hand beneath the crook of his knees in a bridal carry. 

T’Challa gasped, and despite himself, his eyes flew open at the disorienting shift in position. The room seemed to be spinning about him as he was literally swept off his feet.

Erik looked down at T’Challa, his eyes widening with surprise. 

Well, the pretense was up now. "Put me down!" T'Challa exclaimed. He thrust the knife that he was still holding upwards, blade out, in the direction of Erik’s neck. 

Erik jerked back just in time to avoid getting cut, and T’Challa tumbled out of his arms onto the ground, landing ass first with a jarring thud. He winced at the immediate burn of pain radiating out from the area of impact - that was definitely going to bruise later. Before Erik could recover from his surprise, T’Challa hastily scrambled to his feet and began to back away as far as he could, putting the back of a chair between himself and Erik. He continued holding the small dinner knife out in front of him as if it were a longsword.

Erik looked so surprised that his prey had somehow managed to slip away that it was almost comical. His eyes flicked to the wine glass, then back to T'Challa, as if he couldn’t believe that the wine hadn’t taken any effect on him.

Glaring at Erik, T'Challa said, “Thought you could drug me? Stay back! I know what you are!”

Erik recovered from his surprise quickly. He simply smirked at T’Challa again, wholly unconcerned with his threats. Ignoring what T’Challa had said, he began to stalk towards T’Challa with all the sinuous, silky grace of a fox hunting his prey. 

For each step Erik took, T'Challa found himself backing away in panic, all the way until his back hit the wall. 

_ Nowhere else to run. _

“And just what do you think I am?” Erik purred, his voice soft and dangerous.

“I -” 

T'Challa's mouth was so dry. His tongue didn't seem to work, and his heart was pounding hard enough that he could almost hear the blood rushing in his ears. 

He got another horrible shock when he saw that Erik's shadow was actually growing  _ darker, _ extending with each passing second. T'Challa watched, transfixed and terrified, as the dark shadow on the wall rippled, transforming in an instant from a human silhouette to the shadow of a sleek, graceful beast with three long, arching tails fanning out behind him. 

“K-kitsune,” T’Challa breathed out.

Erik grinned at him; feral,  _ predatory. _ Now that he wasn’t bothering to hide it, T'Challa got a good view of the kitsune’s sharp, golden-capped fangs, sharper and more pointed than any humans, and glinting a brilliant gold in the low, intimate light.

_ "Put that down," _ Erik said intently, his voice a low, rumbling purr. There were strange, mesmerising  _ layers _ to it, almost as if multiple people were speaking at once. 

T’Challa’s hands shook, and to his horror, he  _ almost  _ dropped his knife as his grip on its handle momentarily loosened. He inhaled sharply, then wrapped both of his hands around the knife’s handle this time, steadying his grip on it as his lips tightened with determination

Erik eyes widened. He blinked slowly, once, as if he couldn’t believe that T’Challa hadn’t done as he’d ordered.

"You have a strong will, for a human," Erik said, sounding almost admiring, but T’Challa could detect the undertone of puzzlement in his voice.

“Or maybe your magic just isn’t working,” T’Challa shot back, recalling the tails he’d stuffed away at the bottom of his iron suitcase. 

T’Challa immediately regretted it the instant the words left his lips. Erik’s expression transformed from one of mild admiration to a scowl of outright hostility. Sharp teeth bared, eyes simmering with rage, he advanced on T’Challa, practically vibrating with rage.

_ “What did you do?” _

Oh, Bast. He really shouldn’t have provoked the kitsune like this. That had been a bad, bad idea. Why couldn’t he have just kept his mouth shut? Or tried to talk Erik out of it? Panicked, T’Challa recoiled as Erik covered the distance between them in quick, long strides. 

_ Bast! _ T’Challa realised that he’d already backed himself into a corner. He looked wildly around him, but there was absolutely nowhere else he could run and nothing else beside him that could be used as a weapon to defend himself against an enraged fox spirit.

And it was already too late.Erik was right in front of T’Challa now. Hands reached out to grab him by the collar, jerking T’Challa forward, so close that they were now almost nose to nose.

T’Challa gasped and hastily raised the knife again, but without looking down, Erik batted it out of his hands. T’Challa yelped aloud, more out of fear than pain. Adrenaline was flooding his system, and the sharp jolt of pain that ran up T’Challa’s wrists dissipated almost as quickly as it had risen. 

Erik began to shake him back and forth, so violently that T'Challa imagined he could feel his teeth rattling in his skull. His desperate efforts to squirm free only served to enrage the kitsune further. “What the  _ fuck  _ did you do?”

“Let go! Don’t touch me! Or you’ll never see your tails again!”

Erik inhaled sharply. His eyes were still burning with murderous rage, but it worked - he finally stopped shaking T'Challa and released his grip on T'Challa's collar. However, he raised his hand right next to T'Challa's cheek, clenching into a curled fish so tightly that T’Challa could see the veins bulging on the back of his hands. 

T'Challa flinched, expecting to be hit, but all Erik did was loom threateningly over him. 

“Where are they? What did you do to them?” Erik demanded, sounding furious. But T’Challa could detect the hints of Erik’s true panic below the angry facade, from the way the kitsune’s hand trembled to the way he was breathing in quick shallow pants, almost as if he were on the verge of a breakdown.

“Put down your hands,” T’Challa demanded. 

Erik didn’t move.

“Three tails. That’s three hundred years of cultivation, from what I’ve heard,” T’Challa said warningly. “If you don’t put your hands down  _ now -” _

Erik let out a deep, rumbling growl, but then he slowly, slowly lowered his fists, still looking murderous. 

T’Challa allowed himself to relax minutely. He took a couple of deep breaths to steady his frayed nerves.

“Are you a hunter?” Erik demanded. “Look, I’m - I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t actually going to do anything to you, I swear.”

_ Liar,  _ T’Challa thought, but he kept his mouth shut as Erik rambled on, quietly observing how Erik's expression transformed from murderous, to merely threatening, and then to outright desperation as T'Challa continued to look on at him unmoved. 

“You didn’t destroy the tails, did you?” Now Erik sounded truly panicked. “If you’ll just give them back to me - if you’ve  _ done  _ anything to them -” His voice wavered. “Look, I can give you money, if that’s what you want. I can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. I can do magic that humans can only dream of - but I’ll need the tails back. You just need to return them to me. After all, what use does a human have for kitsune tails?”

Even as Erik's voice pitched low and sweet and he batted his eyelashes alluringly at T'Challa, his panic was so obvious that T’Challa couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him. The kitsune was merely acting in its nature, after all. And it was true that he hadn’t actually  _ done _ anything to T’Challa yet, though not for lack of trying.

T’Challa made up his mind.

“I don’t want money," T’Challa assured Erik. “And don’t worry. I haven’t destroyed the tails. But I’ve hidden them  _ very  _ securely, and you’ll never find them again without my help. If you’ll just leave me alone and then take me down the mountain tomorrow, I’ll let you have your tails back.”

Erik looked so immensely relieved that T’Challa knew that he had made the right choice.

“Deal?” T’Challa extended his hand out for Erik to shake. 

Instead, Erik reached out to grip T’Challa by the forearm, his hand clasping T’Challa’s arm just beneath the elbow joint. A jolt ran up T’Challa’s spine, and his eyes widened as he inhaled sharply. The kitsune’s touch was warm. Electrifying.

“Deal,” Erik purred.


	4. Chapter 4

T'Challa followed cautiously behind Erik as they left the dining room. His heart was still pounding fast from adrenaline as they made their way through the giant mansion. He still couldn’t believe that he had somehow escaped unscathed from the kitsune’s clutches.

Or had he? 

"Ah - where are we going?" T'Challa asked, trying to sound threatening, but only succeeding in sounding nervous.

In response, Erik pulled open the door closest to them, revealing a large bedroom, so luxuriously furnished that the sight of it made T’Challa’s jaw drop. A lit chandelier, sparkling with jewels, hung from the centre of the ceiling, casting the entire room in a soft, flickering glow. The soft candlelight illuminated the single king-sized bed pushed up against the wall, fitted with dark red satin sheets and piled high with fluffy pillows and blankets which looked incredibly soft. After all that he had gone through that day, T’Challa couldn’t wait to sink into its soft depths and close his eyes.

Unbidden, a small smile curled up the corners of T’Challa’s lips. “Thank you.”

He made to enter the room, but to his surprise, Erik followed in behind him. Puzzled, T’Challa turned around to face Erik. 

_ “ _ I thought  I was sleeping here,” T’Challa said to Erik.

“Yes, of course.”

“I mean, I thought I was sleeping here.  _ Alone,”  _ T’Challa clarified. Was Erik really going to share a room with him? “Aren’t you going to sleep somewhere else?”

“Nah. I don’t have any other bedrooms,” Erik said with a shrug.

“I don’t believe it,” T’Challa said incredulously. “This house is huge! You’re telling me you only have one bedroom? What are all the other rooms  _ for?” _

“I only  _ created  _ one bedroom,” Erik said. “Why would I bother to make more? What a waste of magic. I thought we’d be sleeping together.”

T’Challa flushed, but quickly pushed on. “If there’s only one bedroom - there’s only one  _ bed - _ then where are you going to sleep?”

“Here. With you,” Erik said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“No!” T’Challa said, shaking his head empathically. “You can sleep on the floor.”

“It’s  _ my  _ house!” Erik objected, looking outraged. “ _ You  _ can sleep on the floor. I’m sleeping in the bed.” A sly look crossed his face. “Of course, if you give me the tails back, I can create another bed for you as easily as snapping my fingers -”

_“No,”_ T’Challa said firmly. Did Erik think that he was a complete idiot? “You know what? Fine. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, and T’Challa was already regretting his choice.

He really should have made Erik sleep on the floor instead. He had leverage over the kitsune now. But some part of him had felt vaguely bad about sleeping in the bed while he made his host sleep on the floor. 

He shouldn’t have listened to that little niggling voice of conscience. The floor was so cold and hard. T’Challa was used to sleeping rough when he was travelling, but even the most threadbare mattress in the cheapest roadside inn still wasn't as uncomfortable as the marbled floor of the kitsune’s bedroom.

And he was  _ freezing.  _ The chill of the night air crept in from the large open windows with every gust of wind, seeming to sink right into his bones. The blanket that he had taken off the bed wasn’t thick enough to keep him warm. It was made out of some light, silky material that merely  _ looked  _ soft, but was practically useless in keeping in the heat. The same went for the clothes that he had borrowed from Erik. The short, flimsy robe that barely reached his thighs did nothing to keep out the cold mountain wind.

T'Challa shifted uncomfortably and pulled the blanket higher up around his shoulders so that it was almost touching his collarbone. A full-body shiver wracked him, and he tried to tuck himself deeper into the blanket again.

There was a sigh from above him. Then Erik's deep voice said, “Oh, stop being stubborn. Come join me.”

T’Challa didn’t answer him. He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, once, and then let out a long, slow exhale.

“I know you aren’t asleep yet,” Erik said from somewhere above him, on the bed. The large, soft, _warm_ bed.

“No,” T’Challa mumbled, pretending to be irritated. “I was sleeping! You woke me up.”

Erik snorted. “You’ve been tossing and turning all night,” he said. Now he just seemed amused. “Come on up. There’s enough room here for both of us.”

T’Challa nibbled his lip in indecision. It would be stupid to trust the kitsune when he had so narrowly escaped Erik’s clutches. But - 

“I won’t do anything, I swear,” Erik continued.

It was T’Challa’s turn to snort now. “You lured me into your house. You tried to drug me!”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Erik protested, sounding highly offended. “I’d have made it fun for you. Better than it would have been with any human partner. And you know that I’m not going to harm you, not when you have my tails. Come on up.”

T’Challa could feel his resolve wavering in the face of the kitsune’s soft, honeyed voice. All he could think of was how good the bed would feel, in contrast to the hard, cold floor.

“No.” A pathetic, last-ditch attempt at resistance, but T’Challa’s voice was wavering instead of firm. In that moment, both Erik and T’Challa knew that Erik had won.

There was the sound of the blankets being shifted aside as Erik shifted to make room for T’Challa on the bed.

“Come on, T’Challa,” Erik coaxed, patting the empty spot on the mattress beside him. In the weak silvery moonlight filtering through the glass of the window panes, T’Challa could see that he was grinning, a mischievous smirk playing around the corners of his lips. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I promise.”

T’Challa bit back a sigh as he pulled himself to his feet. He pushed the blanket and pillow he had been using aside, making a mental note to pick them up in the morning, then cautiously made his way to the bed.

“Don’t touch me,” T’Challa said nervously, patting the side of the bed. The mattress was soft and yielding under his hand. “We’re just going to  _ sleep, _ that’s all. Don’t try anything funny.”

“Mmmm.” A noncommittal hum from the kitsune. Somehow, Erik still managed to make it sound smug. 

That wasn’t a very reassuring answer, but T’Challa had already given up on trying to get a firm assurance out of him. He sat down gingerly on the side of the bed, taking care not to brush against Erik, then carefully, slowly, climbed into the bed and stretched out, tugging the blanket over himself as he did so.

_ Ahhh. _

The bed was so soft that it was like sinking into a pile of feathers. It had been warmed up by the kitsune’s body heat too, and felt wonderfully comfortable against T'Challa's chilled skin. T’Challa couldn’t hold back the small sigh of genuine pleasure as he snuggled under the covers, making himself comfortable. 

He had just squeezed his eyes shut in bliss when, without warning, Erik wrapped his arms around T’Challa.

At first, T'Challa was so surprised that he couldn't even speak. He just froze up, going stiff in the kitsune’s embrace as Erik pulled him closer, in towards his warm, broad chest. 

“Hey!” 

“Shhhh," Erik murmured, nuzzling into the side of T'Challa's neck. 

T'Challa's heart was pounding so fast that he could barely choke out his next words. "Let  _ go  _ of me!" he protested, trying to squirm free. 

Erik merely tightened his grip around T’Challa. "Just relax," Erik purred into the shell of his ear. A hand snaked its around T'Challa's waist, coming to rest on the side of his hip. "See, isn't it more comfortable like this?"

The annoying thing was, Erik was right. The kitsune’s body felt delightfully warm and solid against his own, and it  _ would _ have been nice to cuddle with him if T'Challa hadn’t been acutely aware that the kitsune’s mouth - the kitsune’s  _ fangs _ \- were now right against the side of his very vulnerable neck. 

And he couldn’t ignore how Erik was very clearly taking advantage of the situation to feel him up. The fingers of Erik’s hand which was cupping his hip were now trailing closer, creeping in towards his groin.

“I said let  _ go  _ of me!” Alarm tinged T’Challa’s voice as he kicked out blindly beneath the covers.

“Ow!” Erik sounded highly affronted. T’Challa’s foot had connected with his shin. But the kick had gotten results - Erik released his hold on T’Challa, and T’Challa took advantage of that momentary reprieve to place as much distance between himself and Erik as possible.

“You said you wouldn’t do anything!” T’Challa didn’t bother trying to hide his annoyance. He had warned Erik multiple times, and Erik had just blithely ignored him.

“Fine, fine,” Erik grumbled. “I thought it was worth a try. Now go to sleep.”

Breathing hard, T’Challa tried to close his eyes and relax again. This time, he very carefully maintained a good arm’s length of distance between himself and the very touchy kitsune. 

To his relief, Erik didn’t try to feel him up again. The kitsune merely grumbled under his breath one final time before rolling onto his side and closing his eyes. 

T’Challa waited with bated breath, but long moments passed and Erik didn’t stir or reach out towards him. The tension slowly drained out of T’Challa’s body as the kitsune continued to remain still. Erik’s eyelids were closed, and he breathed evenly in long, deep inhales and exhales. It was easy for T’Challa to slowly let his guard down, when the man beside him looked so peaceful and relaxed that it was almost as if he were sleeping next to a lover. 

Had Erik really gone to sleep so quickly? Lost interest in tormenting T'Challa so soon? 

T'Challa examined Erik's face, lit by the weak glow of moon beams filtering in through the window. In sleep, Erik’s face looked open and relaxed, and his eyes, normally sparkling with mischief, were peacefully closed. T’Challa couldn’t help noticing that Erik’s eyelashes were very long and very dark. Gazing into the sleeping man’s handsome face, it was almost difficult to believe that the man before him was a dangerous beast. 

Holding his breath, T’Challa reached a hand out and gingerly, tentatively, laid it on Erik’s upper arm. 

Erik didn't stir. 

_ Bast.  _ Erik’s biceps were so toned and muscled that T’Challa couldn’t resist letting his hand linger for a few moments longer, relishing in the feel of the solid muscles under his fingers. 

This was such a bad idea, but for some reason, T’Challa couldn't seem to tear himself away. His face grew warm as he continued to stroke Erik's bicep, lightly so as not to wake the sleeping man, while his gaze lingered on the strong line of Erik’s jaw. A single moonbeam struck at just the right angle to illuminate the kitsune’s plush lips, lips that were just slightly parted. T'Challa dreamily wondered what these lips would feel like against his own. 

Erik really was unfairly attractive. Just the mere sight of his sleeping face was enough to make T'Challa feel slightly breathless. 

Suddenly, Erik’s eyes flew open.

T’Challa let out a high-pitched squeak of shock and jerked his hand away as if burned. He recoiled away from Erik, cringing in embarrassment at being caught…  _ fondling _ him. What had he been thinking? 

“Oh Bast, I’m so sorry -” T'Challa began to apologise. 

Erik grinned at him. Then he pounced.

There was a moment of disorientation as T’Challa was swept up into Erik’s embrace again. This time, Erik didn’t let him loose even when T’Challa began to squirm, letting out wordless, futile little noises of protest.

“Why do you keep denying yourself what you really want?” Erik purred into his ear. 

T'Challa shivered. Trapped in the kitsune’s arms, his heart pounding so hard that it felt like it would leap out of his chest, he could only stammer, “No, I don’t - I don’t -”

“Liar,” Erik hissed, smirking down at him. “I can smell the arousal on you. You want me.”

T’Challa felt his face heat up as the blood in his body seemed to reroute itself in an instant from his cock to his cheeks. Mortified, he flung out a last-ditch protest, “You’re - you're bewitching me!”

Erik laughed at him outright. “You know I can’t use any magic at the moment. What you’re feeling right now? It’s  _ all  _ you.” 

T'Challa gaped at him. He opened his mouth to deny it, but then Erik seized the opportunity to cup T'Challa's cheek in his hand, pulling T’Challa’s face close so that their lips met. 

T'Challa's words of protest died on his lips, swallowed up into the kiss. Heat seared through his veins, an electric thrill running through his entire body. It almost felt as if his blood was singing. It was the most natural thing in the world to let himself melt into the kiss, his mind overwhelmed with the intense, overwhelming pleasure of Erik's lips pressed against him in the longest, most passionate kiss of his life.

Fragments of thoughts flitted through T’Challa’s mind.  _ Oh, Bast. _ This was such a bad idea. He already knew that Erik was a dangerous spirit. He was risking his life - he was risking his  _ soul.  _ But the danger just seemed to make the thrill even more intense. All thoughts of restraint, of caution, fled from T’Challa’s mind at the feeling of Erik’s warm mouth pressed against his in a bruising, searing kiss, Erik’s hands roaming over his body. T’Challa let out a breathless little moan as Erik’s wandering hands reached lower, trailing down the muscles of his back until it was just resting at the round curve of his ass.

“Sleeping with me won’t kill you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Erik purred, all dark and seductive. “That’s just a silly human myth.”

His large palms tightened, cupping and squeezing T’Challa’s ass. T’Challa let out a small, helpless gasp of pleasure. 

With an effort, he forced himself to focus on Erik’s words instead of his hands. “R-really?” T’Challa said, his voice almost a whisper. His voice sounded so high-pitched and breathless that he almost didn't recognise it as his own. 

“Mmmm,” Erik hummed. “Not if it’s just one time. You’ll love it. I’d make it good for you. And you’ll be helping me out. Wouldn’t you like that?" 

“Helping you?” T’Challa’s mind was going fuzzy, intoxicated in a hazy mix of heat and pleasure. It was hard to focus on what Erik was saying when his hand was squeezing and rubbing against T’Challa’s ass, sending thrills of pleasure up his spine.

“Mmm. My magic,” Erik said, softly. Sweetly. “It takes a hundred years for a kitsune to cultivate each tail. A hundred years. Can you imagine? That’s more than one of your mortal lifespans. But a human’s essence, freely given, can shorten that time by a year at least.”

“Essence, as in -” 

Erik’s hand closed around his cock, and T’Challa cried out. The spark of pleasure that shot through him at the warm heat around his cock sent his knees trembling.

“Essence,” Erik was smirking at him now.

_ Oh.  _ T’Challa’s face heated up with embarrassment. So those sex vampire stories about kitsune were true. He had always thought that they were just tall tales.

Erik kissed him again, this time on the side of his jaw, then continued to suck on and trail soft kisses down the side of his neck. 

“Ahh!” T’Challa gasped, his mouth falling open in a small moan of bliss. “This really won't hurt me?” he said.

Already he could feel his resolve crumbling to dust. Regardless of Erik's answer, he knew that he was too far gone to turn back now. All he wanted was for Erik to continue working that magic with his mouth, his tongue, to continue making his toes curl with pleasure. 

“One night only? No.” Erik said. He was drawing the hem of T’Challa’s ridiculously short robe up now, past the swell of his hips. Erik hadn’t provided him with any clean underwear earlier, and T’Challa squirmed as the cool air of the room hit the exposed skin of his ass. “You’ll be very tired afterwards. That’s all. But it won’t be dangerous.” 

"Mmm -" T'Challa let out another short, bitten-off moan. His breath was now coming out in short, shallow pants. Erik was caressing the insides of his thighs, his fingers just skimming lightly across the sensitive skin of his inner thighs, maddeningly, dangerously close to his groin. Through the hazy mist of pleasure clouding his mind, he managed to choke out a soft murmur of assent. "Yes."

He gasped in surprise as Erik turned him over, shifting him back onto the mattress so that he was no longer lying on his side. T’Challa’s back hit the surface of the mattress, his head propped up on the pillows and his arms flung open wide to either side of him, as if in welcome. There was a brief moment of disorientation as the room spun around him. T'Challa blinked, and then his vision cleared and he was looking up into Erik's face. 

Erik's eyes were so dark with desire that the sight of them made T'Challa's breath hitch. His robe had slipped down off his shoulders, exposing his bare muscled torso in the weak glow of the moonlight, his muscles bunching and flexing as he stretched himself out over T'Challa's prone body. All of Erik's slow teasing from earlier had now ceased. He ground down against T'Challa's body, and T'Challa groaned aloud at the feeling of skin against skin. Heat suffused his entire body as his blood rushed to the surface of the skin, leaving him feeling flushed all over, as if a fire was burning beneath his skin. 

T'Challa still craved  _ more, _ more of the kitsune’s heat, the kitsune’s touch. He reached out to caress Erik’s broad chest, then wrapped his arms around Erik’s neck as Erik spread T’Challa’s thighs apart. 

At that T’Challa’s heart stuttered in his chest. He didn’t sleep with men very often, but he was familiar enough with the process to know that it required a bit more prep than with a woman, and if it wasn’t done right he could actually get hurt. Still, he was so eager to get down to the actual fucking that he wriggled impatiently as Erik got out a small vial of oil, letting out wordless, half-formed pleas to urge Erik to hurry up. 

His cock was already hard by the time Erik uncorked the vial and let a generous amount of some sort of fragrant, golden oil drizzle onto his palm. 

“Ohhh -” A long, shameless sigh of bliss escaped T’Challa’s lips as Erik knelt between his spread legs and closed his slippery-slick fingers around T’Challa’s cock. T’Challa spread his thighs wider, thrusting his cock upwards into Erik’s clenched fist as Erik thumbed at the sensitive head and stroked up and down his shaft, first with light, smooth touches, before gradually speeding up to a hard, fast rhythm that had T’Challa struggling to hold back his whimpers. Erik maintained the same maddening rhythm, even as the fingers of his other hand began to tease and play with the sensitive rim of T'Challa's hole.

T'Challa desperately craved ever more of that glorious friction against his cock, but at the same time, he didn't want to embarrass himself by coming all too quickly into Erik's hand before he had even felt Erik’s cock within him.

"Can you -" T'Challa managed to choke out, in between his pants for breath, "can you - fuck me now -" 

He cried out, hands fisting and twisting against the silky sheets as Erik suddenly slipped a finger into him.

The breath left T’Challa’s lungs as Erik’s finger slid slowly, inexorably deep into the most intimate part of himself. It didn’t  _ hurt,  _ exactly - Erik was being too careful for that - but the sensation of being penetrated was still intense enough to make his toes curl. 

He whimpered at the burn of Erik's fingers filling him up and stretching him open, sliding along his inner walls, curling within him as he sought out that sweet spot that sent a jolt of pure pleasure through T'Challa, so intense that it made his thighs shake. Another breathless, high-pitched keen escaped T'Challa's lips. His cock stiffened in Erik’s hand, and he let out a small gasp as Erik tightened his grip on it, stroking him again with greater urgency. He could only imagine how good it would feel when Erik finally fucked him, properly this time, splitting him open on his cock.

“That’s enough,” T’Challa gasped out. “I want your cock now.” 

His cheeks flushed immediately the moment that wanton,  _ slutty  _ request slipped out, but to his relief, Erik didn't tease him. As T'Challa spread his legs wider in invitation, Erik withdrew his fingers from T'Challa's ass with a lewd, wet squelch. 

Knowing what was coming next, T'Challa could barely hold back an excited whine as Erik placed both hands on his thighs, spreading them further apart as he lifted T’Challa’s hips, then lined his hard cock up so that the tip of it was just nudging against T'Challa's hole. 

Just looking down at the size of Erik’s cock was enough to make T'Challa breathless. It was much thicker than Erik's fingers, bigger than that of any other man he’d been with. How was all  _ that  _ going to fit within him? 

T'Challa's heart rate spiked in a mix of terror and arousal. Instantly, he regretted not having let Erik finger him longer earlier. But before he could even think of how to phrase what he wanted to say, Erik's cock was already sliding into him. 

"Ahh!" 

T'Challa gasped out loud, all the breath leaving his lungs in one sharp exhale at the sensation of the incredible stretch. Erik wasn't going in fast, giving him time to adjust as he slowly pushed in inch by inexorable inch, but he was so  _ big  _ that T’Challa felt as if he were being split wide apart. Erik’s cock continued to force apart his inner walls as he whimpered, his breathing becoming shallow and desperate. 

Instinctively, T’Challa tried to squirm away from the intrusion, but Erik’s large hands held T’Challa firmly in place on his cock.

“Relax,” Erik coaxed, his fingers rubbing slow circles on the insides of T’Challa’s thighs. But Erik’s grip was tight enough that T’Challa could only squirm in place, forced to stay in position. The kitsune was going to get what he wanted tonight, and there was no way that he was letting his prize slip from his grasp again.

T’Challa panted as he tried to make himself relax, adjusting to the sudden burn of the stretch. The initial sting of penetration faded quite quickly, aided as it was by the copious amount of slick oil in T’Challa’s hole and on Erik’s cock. After a few heartbeats, all T’Challa could focus on was the overwhelming pressure of Erik’s huge cock stretching him open and how he wanted ever more of it. 

T'Challa flexed experimentally, drawing a groan from Erik as his tight hole clenched around Erik's cock. He wriggled to signal his eagerness, rocking back and forth on Erik's cock to try and get more of it into him. "More… harder," T'Challa panted, all thoughts of modesty fleeing from his mind.

Erik began to fuck him hard and fast, setting a punishing rhythm that had T'Challa crying out loud with each sharp thrust, so deep that he felt as he were being split open to his very depths. T'Challa was practically seeing stars with each thrust as Erik's cock filled him up, stretching him wide open. His fingernails dug shallowly into the bare skin of Erik’s back, clutching him tightly as Erik gave him the ride of his life. 

T’Challa gave himself over to the waves of ecstasy sweeping through his body, each forward snap of Erik’s hips lighting up all the pleasure points within him as Erik stretched him wide open with his huge cock. Erik was like a ravenous beast, rutting into T’Challa hard and fast, panting hard into T’Challa’s ear as he fucked hard into T’Challa’s pliant body. Helpless, desperate cries fell from T’Challa’s lips at the fervour of the onslaught, cries that were muffled against Erik’s shoulder as he continued to thrust into T’Challa so forcefully that his body was pushed backward on the sheets, until he had almost reached the headboard of the bed.

Even as he was manhandled, T’Challa continued to lift his hips to meet each hard thrust, welcoming each stab of Erik’s cock within him. With some squirming, he managed to angle himself so that each time Erik fucked into him, his cock brushed against T’Challa’s prostate in just the right way to make him see stars with each thrust.  _ Bast, _ this was - overwhelming. He knew he wouldn’t be able to last much longer. He was already much too aroused to be able to hold back his approaching climax. On the next hard thrust, he could feel his balls tightening, the familiar sensation of orgasm building within him as he neared the brink of release, making his cock feel almost achingly hard. 

“Oh!”

The next thrust wrenched a cry of ecstasy out of T’Challa as his cock slid against the taut surface of Erik’s abdomen, at the same time as Erik’s cock fucked into him, hard enough to make his toes curl. Stars exploded behind his eyes as his cock jerked, releasing spurts of come untouched against where their bellies were joined. 

It seemed as if the energy had seeped out of T’Challa’s limbs all at once. A wave of exhaustion and lethargy swept over him, making his vision go momentarily dark. His head spun. His breathing went shallow. Dimly, T’Challa recalled what Erik had told him earlier, about how a kitsune could absorb a human’s essence, his vitality, to strengthen his magic. 

He should - he should really tell Erik to stop before Erik drained him completely dry. But T'Challa couldn't concentrate enough to make his lips form words. He was loose-limbed and pliant beneath Erik as Erik continued to fuck him unrelentingly hard through his orgasm, not slowing, not stopping, even as T'Challa began to whimper from the overstimulation. 

Despite his exhaustion, T'Challa didn’t want Erik to stop yet. The sensation of oversensitivity was now edging into pain, T'Challa was still too horny, and he didn't want to ask for a break yet. Even having orgasmed once already didn't seem to take the sharp edge off the lust thrumming through his body. His cock was already beginning to stiffen with interest again. Somehow, it was as if his normal refractory period had vanished. Was it some sort of magical side effect of mating with a kitsune? Letting a normal human have enough stamina to keep up? 

The next thrust had T'Challa crying out loud as Erik's cock fucked deep into his oversensitive insides. His vision dimmed, even as another spark of desire thrummed through his body, setting his nerves alight. 

With a last gasp of strength, T'Challa dug his nails as hard as he could into the skin of Erik's back. But his grip was so kitten-weak that his fingernails didn't even leave a scratch against Erik's skin. 

"Erik -" T'Challa managed to say, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Whatever he was going to say next was cut off by Erik's lips pressed against his in a fierce, bruising kiss. Erik continued to pound T'Challa into the mattress, fucking him tirelessly,  _ relentlessly, _ without end, as T'Challa writhed beneath him.


	5. Chapter 5

T'Challa blinked once. Twice. 

For some reason, the mere act of blinking took an incredible amount of effort. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open.

T'Challa concentrated hard, trying desperately to keep his eyelids from falling closed. His vision swam. All that he could see before him was a blurry mess of colours and shapes.

He gritted his teeth and tried to sit up. For some reason, his body wasn't listening to him. His arms felt weak and limp, and it was only with great effort that he managed to curl his fingers into half-clenched fists, gripping weakly against the sheets. 

What was going on? What had happened to him?

Try as he might, T’Challa couldn’t remember. Alarm flickered in his mind, but it was faint and muffled, like the sound of a siren blaring from a great distance. His mind felt slow and fuzzy, almost as if his thoughts were percolating through a thick, heavy fog.

Still, he was aware enough to know that something wasn’t right. He forced himself to concentrate. Vague recollections, bits and pieces of images and sound, flitted through his mind. 

He had been - running - trying to get somewhere. Where?

He’d been lost in the mountains. 

A snatch of memory, of running, panicked, through the trees and heavy underbrush, as the rain poured down from the heavens in freezing torrents.

Someone had saved him. The handsome man who'd rescued him… 

The man had told T'Challa his name. What had it been? The name was on the tip of his tongue. 

… Erik.

The man's name was Erik. 

More images flashed through his mind, falling into place quickly this time.

_Erik's mansion._

_The feast, more food than T'Challa had ever seen before in his life._

_The -_

_The_ **_tails._ **

The three furry fox tails that he'd discovered at the back of Erik’s closet. The sudden recollection of the kitsune’s tails pierced through the hazy fog in T'Challa's mind like the blade of a cold, sharp knife. 

It was as if a key had turned within his mind. His memories came rushing back, revelation after revelation until T'Challa felt crushed beneath the shattering weight of it all. 

Taking the fox tails from the closet, hiding them in his luggage, tricking the kitsune, sleeping with the kitsune - 

**_Sleeping_ ** _with the kitsune._

Oh, Bast. What had he done?

He had - he had actually _slept_ with Erik. In the heat of the moment, he'd let Erik fuck him.

T'Challa's cheeks grew warm with embarrassment and dismay. How could he have done that? Gotten carried away like some blushing virgin overwhelmed by his hormones? Erik could have eaten him. _Killed_ him. The realization was like a bucket of ice water dumped on his head. 

His heart pounding fast with adrenaline, T'Challa quickly took stock of himself. He felt bruised and sore all over. Not the pleasant ache that came with a night of marathon fucking, but a sharper, deeper pain whenever he moved, in very _intimate_ areas of himself. 

It hurt to even try to sit up. T'Challa winced as he pulled himself upright with great effort until he was seated on the bed, leaning back against the soft pillows. Even that simple movement made a stab of ache shoot through his body. His ass felt raw and used. How many rounds had they gone through last night? T'Challa had lost count. The last thing he remembered was being turned over onto his front, muffling his moans into a feather pillow as Erik's cock pumped in and out of his sore, chafing hole. Erik had fucked him until he'd practically blacked out. 

"Awake so soon?" 

T'Challa froze, hardly daring to breathe. Slowly, he turned his head to the right, towards the source of the voice. 

Erik waa lounging in bed, half-naked except for a pair of baggy white trousers loosely cinched around his waist. The golden rays of the morning sun cast a warm, soft glow against his dark skin. An open book was propped up on his chest, but Erik snapped it shut and carelessly tossed it onto the bedside table as he turned to face T’Challa. 

In the light of day, Erik looked even more sharply handsome than in T’Challa’s memories. And he looked _incredibly_ pleased with himself, so smugly self-satisfied that T'Challa's cheeks flushed warm again at the obvious evidence of the kitsune’s sated appetites.

An eyeblink later, Erik rolled over so that he was right next to T’Challa, so close that T’Challa could feel the heat emanating from his body. He squeaked in surprise as, for the second time in as many days, T’Challa found himself dragged bodily into the kitsune’s embrace.

He struggled weakly to get free as Erik nuzzled against the base of his neck, ignoring T’Challa’s kitten-weak attempts to push him off. “Hey!” T’Challa protested.

“Up for another round?” Probing fingers trailed down T'Challa's spine, lingering on the curve of his ass. T’Challa winced at the feeling of stickiness from the mingled sweat and semen drying against his skin, a lewd reminder of the numerous times that they had fucked last night. Just thinking back on it made his ass throb again. 

Blushing, his heart pounding fast, T’Challa managed to force out, “No! What did you do? What’s _wrong_ with me? Why do I feel so - so weak?” And beneath that, unspoken fear that he just managed to keep from blurting out: _am I going to die?_

“We fucked.” Erik said, in the air of someone explaining something self-evident to a rather dim child. “You got a little worn out.”

“Worn out? I can't even _move!”_

Erik laughed, sounding quite amused. Affectionate. “So dramatic. You're just tired. We didn't exactly have a restful night. You’ll be fine in a few hours.” He got back to nuzzling and trailing kisses down T'Challa's neck. 

Despite himself, arousal flickered within T'Challa again, like the ignition of a tiny spark, ready to be stoked into a roaring inferno. 

Bast. What was _wrong_ with him? How could he still be thinking with his dick at a moment like this? 

"I have to go home," T'Challa protested, guiltily recalling with a jolt that Mother and Shuri were waiting for him. "I need to get back to Wakanda before the New Year!" 

"Stop making a fuss,” Erik said. "With my powers back, I can get you there in a few hours at most. Even if we go a few more rounds, we can still reach Wakanda today before the sun sets."

Could he really -? T’Challa’s heart leapt. Even if he ran the entire way, it would still take at least two days for him to get back to Wakanda on his own. But he knew better than to believe the wily fox spirit this time. There was no guarantee that Erik wouldn’t just decide to keep him here until he tired of T’Challa. 

The image of the three fox tails stuffed at the very bottom of his trunk, his only leverage on Erik, flashed into T'Challa's mind. Drumming up his courage, T'Challa insisted, "Have you forgotten that I still have your tails? We made a deal. Don’t - don’t try to pull any tricks. Take me home right now.” 

"The tails.” Erik smirked. “You mean this?" 

There was a flash of brilliant golden light, so bright and piercing that T’Challa instinctively squeezed his eyes shut and threw his hand up before his face to shield his eyes. Even then, he could still see the bright golden glow filtering through his closed eyelids. A roaring, rushing sound filled T’Challa’s ears. The very ground seemed to tremble, causing the bedframe to rattle and shake beneath him. T’Challa cried out in alarm, falling back against the pillows, cowering instinctively in the face of this unknown, _unearthly_ power. 

Then, as suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. The ground stilled. The light faded. All the sound and the fury faded, leaving a ringing silence in T’Challa’s ears, all quiet save for the harsh, terrified panting breaths coming from T’Challa himself.

What just happened?

For several long seconds T’Challa didn’t dare to move. He sat frozen in position, his hand still raised before his face, shielding his eyes. 

When nothing happened, T'Challa took a few deep breaths to steady his nerves. Slowly, painstakingly, he lowered his shaking arm; and then slowly, painstakingly, he opened his eyes.

Standing before him, at the foot of the bed, was Erik.

But it wasn’t the same Erik that T’Challa had spent the night with. Not the tall, dark, and handsome man who had rescued him from the wolves, teased him, flirted with him and then fucked him into the mattress. 

But the man - the _spirit_ \- standing before T’Challa now was very obviously _not human._ Erik’s dark skin now gleamed with an unearthly inner glow. His hair, long and dreadlocked, flowed out behind him, streaming over his shoulders even though there was no wind in the room, and peeking out from beneath his dreads were the tips of two incredibly furry fox ears. Somehow, Erik was even fully clothed now, although he had been half-naked before - dressed in a luxurious, fur-lined embroidered robe with long, flowing sleeves which fell half-open to reveal his broad, muscled chest. 

As T’Challa stared, open-mouthed, golden sparks of magic faded from the tips of Erik’s fingers, sparks which Erik casually brushed off on the side of his robe.

One by one, three large large fox tails fanned out behind the spirit - one as pure and white as fresh-fallen snow; one of the deepest midnight black; and one of glistening gold. 

"You - you -" T'Challa was too shocked to speak. His heart was pounding so hard that his chest hurt.

Erik smirked. There was a devilish glint in his eyes.

“They weren’t exactly hard to find,” he said smugly.

Terrified, T'Challa swallowed hard. Even Erik's _voice_ was different now, much deeper than before and layered with a strange resonances.

Erik continued, “Really now? Your trunk? _That_ was the best hiding place you could come up with?” A predatory grin spread across his face, and the corners of his lips curled up to reveal sharp, golden fanged canines. Fox teeth. 

He was going to die. T'Challa was sure of it. He had lost his gamble, and now the kitsune was going to devour him as punishment for trying to steal his tails. 

"Please," T'Challa whispered. Tears burned in the corners of his eyes. "Please, don't eat me. I just want to go home."

"Eat you?" Erik laughed at him outright. "Come on, you should know better by now why I really want." 

He stalked closer to the bed, closer to T'Challa. Each step he took was slow, languid and graceful. T'Challa scrambled back until his back hit the headboard, but there was nowhere he could go. With fresh horror, he realised that Erik was taking his time. Drawing this out. _Toying_ with him. 

Erik was right before T'Challa now. T'Challa cringed, whimpering in terror as Erik reached out a hand to cup his face. The kitsune’s palm was so warm that he could feel it heating up his cheek. 

"Aww. Poor little human," Erik purred. "Shhh. I'm not going to hurt you."

T'Challa didn't believe him. He tried to shove Erik away. "No, please -” 

Ignoring his pleas, Erik got on the bed. His weight pressed heavily down on T'Challa's prone body, keeping him trapped despite his efforts to squirm free. With a wide sweep of his hand, Erik flung the covers off T'Challa and swept them to the floor. T'Challa let out a high-pitched, terrified yelp as his body was completely exposed. 

"Shh, shh," Erik murmured. His voice was pitched low and soothing, but it still reverberated with strange, mystical resonances. "Now just spread your legs and lie back." 

Oh, Bast. _Again?!_

The relief that Erik wasn't actually going to eat him was outweighed by the fresh dread that swept over him at the thought of getting fucked again when he was so worn out. Whimpering in dismay, T’Challa shook his head, but Erik placed a hand on each of T'Challa legs, gently, but firmly, prying them apart. 

A hot blush rose to T'Challa's cheeks, even as he protested, "Please, no. It hurts. I'm so sore."

"Mmm. Just let me suck your cock," Erik coaxed. “Just one more time, then we can go back to Wakanda, okay?"

Without waiting for T'Challa's answer, Erik lowered his head to T'Challa's bare groin. T'Challa cried out loud, the memory of Erik's sharp golden fangs still bright in his mind, but no sharp teeth pierced through his flesh. Instead, there was just the barest sting of sensation as Erik's teeth scraped against the soft, sensitive skin on his inner thighs before Erik's mouth closed around his cock.

All the fight went out of T'Challa at once. His muscles went limp as Erik began to enthusiastically suck him off, a moan escaping from his lips at the sensation of Erik's talented mouth enveloping his cock. He was still extremely sore, but the warm wet heat soothed the worst of the chafing, even if the stimulation around his oversensitive cock was getting to be a bit too much. 

He entwined his fingers into Erik's locs, letting out a choked cry at a particularly sinful lick. "Erik," T'Challa gasped out, tightening his grip on Erik's hair, his fingers accidentally brushing against the soft, luxuriously furry fox ears. At that, Erik let out a deep, satisfied purr, the action sending a rumbling vibration right through T'Challa's cock. "Erik, slow - slow down!" 

Erik pulled off just long enough to smirk up at T'Challa from between his spread thighs. "No, I don't think I will," he said, a devilish glint in his eyes. 

T'Challa cried out again as Erik got to sucking him off with even greater fervour than before, his tongue swirling around the sensitive head of T'Challa's cock and down his shaft, teasing at the sensitive organ. He fit the entire length of T'Challa's cock in his mouth, sucking until his lips were pressed almost to the base of T'Challa's groin. That slow and filthy motion as Erik sank himself down on T'Challa's cock took his breath away. 

T'Challa moaned in pleasure, his eyes fluttering shut as he gave himself over to the sinful pleasure of Erik’s mouth working on his cock, coaxing him closer and closer to orgasm. How could Erik always talk him into doing whatever he wanted? _Bast._ That blasted fox. 

T’Challa stroked down the side of Erik’s face, guiding Erik to take him in deeper as he began to thrust his hips up shallowly into Erik’s mouth. Beneath his thumb, he could feel the outline of his own cock through Erik’s cheek, and that excited him even further, that physical proof of how much this handsome, dangerous man wanted to satisfy him. 

T'Challa was painfully aroused now, just barely seconds away from coming down Erik’s throat. He could tell that Erik knew this too. There was an urgency to the way Erik was sucking on his cock now, and Erik began to fondle his balls and inner thighs as well, stroking and playing with him in pace with the rhythm of his sucks. 

A cry of pleasure tore free from T'Challa's lips as his mind blanked with pleasure. His muscles tensed, his entire body shuddering with ecstasy as he spilled his release down Erik's mouth. There was just a small spurt of come this time, what with how many times he'd orgasmed over the past night, but Erik still sucked it all down with a long, satisfied groan, his throat working and his lips constricting around T'Challa's cock as he worked T'Challa dry.

Now that he had climaxed, the soreness and fatigue that had been temporarily forgotten in the heat of their coupling came crashing back down on T’Challa. Bast, he had somehow let Erik talk him into sex _again._ He winced as Erik pulled off him. Even that slight friction caused by that motion made his cock feel oversensitive and chafed. 

A small whine of displeasure left T'Challa's mouth, which was quickly silenced by a kiss from Erik. T'Challa could taste the salty aftertaste of his own come lingering on Erik's lips. Erik's hand cupped his face, stroking his cheek as he deepened the kiss. It did feel nice, even if T'Challa was now so exhausted that he could sleep for a week straight. 

"You promised," T'Challa reminded Erik as he gently pulled away. “I really have to go.”

Erik sighed. "Go get dressed."

* * *

Even the simple action of getting out of bed to get dressed was more difficult than T’Challa had anticipated. He had to be helped out of bed by Erik. T’Challa’s legs were so shaky that he couldn't even stand upright, and he had to lean on Erik for support to get up. Each step that he took, the shift of weight from foot to foot, sent a spark of pain running through his body, and there was a hitch in his walk as he took his first few tentative steps across the room. He could _feel_ Erik smirking at the evidence of his handiwork. It was galling. 

In the end, Erik dressed him, helping T’Challa back into his regular robes with more care than T’Challa had expected. Not all the bruises and love bites that dotted his arms, legs and chest were capable of being concealed by his clothes, and T’Challa internally winced at the thought of how he was going to explain all this away to his mother and sister. He hoped that they wouldn’t ask too many questions.

T’Challa wound his arms around Erik’s neck and let Erik carry him out of the house, out into the sunlight. Erik’s arms were strong, but gentle, and T’Challa no longer felt afraid of him at all. Despite everything that Erik had done - luring him back here and keeping him trapped for an entire night - he hadn’t really hurt T’Challa. At least, not in the way that T’Challa had been afraid of. The sight of Erik right now, glowing with satisfaction and in his full glory as a kitsune, bright with power and magic, made T’Chall’as heart skip a beat.

“I’ll miss you,” T’Challa admitted softly. He knew, without a doubt, that no one else - no one _human -_ would ever be able to make him feel like this again. The knowledge that this would be the last time that he would ever see Erik again, now that Erik had taken everything that he wanted, made him feel unaccountably sad. But T’Challa couldn’t help it. He had always fallen fast and fallen hard.

Erik laughed. “No, you won’t.”

T’Challa blinked. 

“I’m going to Wakanda with you,” Erik said. “You thought you could get rid of me so easily? Nah. I'm getting a little lonely up here in the mountains. It's about time for a change.”


End file.
